


Curves

by orphan_account



Series: spirals and Curves [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Ancient History, Gen, M/M, Multi, modern history
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:12:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scotland has never been a maker or shaker of worlds, but often, he finds he walks among those who are. He's caught in their slipstream, and pulled along for the ride.</p><p> </p><p>Companion to <i>spirals</i>. Historical fic. Main pairing is Fran/Scot. Warnings for future minor character deaths, multiple pairings, descriptions of violence, and France not being the best lover and sometimes not being a nice person at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sometime before 410 CE

The Child is one of Rome's.   
  
He does not trust the Child, if only because the Child is one of Rome's.   
  
He remembers Rome, far too well. He remembers fruitlessly attacking the plate armor only to be thrown against a tree; remembered his mother screeching obscenities and laid curses and swore oaths as the knife was pressed to his neck and she leapt upon Rome like a wolf.   
  
He heard a rumor that Rome was raised by wolves. He speaks and acts as they do, but alone and fearful, plotting and fidgety. No wolf can kill Rome.   
  
But he does not trust the Child-belonging-to-Rome, he does not want the Child on his land and he does not wish to ever see another Child of his own kind, barring, perhaps, his brothers to the west and south. He hadn't seen Áed in what felt like forever, and Lugubelenus has been missing since Arth first ran to Mother, sobbing, bleeding, and sending each of them into a panic.  
  
Arth had been there that day, watching; Arth safe meters away while  _he_  was struggling and biting and pressed against the tree with a knife held to his neck while Rome grinned so wickedly and their mother took the bait. He'd slipped from the tree, taken Arth's hand and run, run as his mother freed him and lunged and bit and tore and screamed and held the army back single-handed.   
  
A month later, he had returned to the site of the battle, with Arth by his side, and stared up at The Tree.   
  
Arth went willingly to the man who murdered Mother, but  _he_  swears he will never forgive any of Rome or Rome's offspring, or the ones Rome takes under his wing.   
  
The Child-taken-by-Rome has no place in his lands.   
  
He has a right mind to attack him where the Child stands on the other side of the bushes, petting the speckled horse the Child rides and resting for the night.  
  
He would attack the Child where he sits, but he merely watches, instead.  
  
The Child is looking for him. That much is obvious.   
  
A part of him wants the boy out of his lands. Another wants nothing to do with a messenger of Rome. A third part of him wants to speak, to ask after Arth.   
  
He hasn't seen  _any_  of his brothers in a very long time.  
  
So he watches the Child-from-Rome. He watches the Child for a week, stalking about the brush and moving through the trees as silently as the old owl flies. He paints himself to let all know that he does not wish to be disturbed, not to be invited to any villages and not to be troubled by any problems. His present problem is very near and clear, and he is still working out how to deal with it.  
  
He watches the Child for two weeks. The speckled horse is lost— tripping downhill in a ravine and breaking a leg with the Child crushed under it. He watches as the Child kills the horse, cooks and eats its flesh and before continuing on, searching.  
  
For three weeks, he watches the Child.   
  
In the middle of the fourth, the he forgets to account for wet leaves, stumbles and slips on the muddy slope down to one knee, and freezes.  
  
"Hello?" the Child calls. He stiffens where he hides in the bushes. Long moments pass as thoughts race through his mind, debating with the many sides of himself what to do—what should be done— is this safe—  
  
Slowly, very slowly, he emerges from his hiding place, bow strung and arrow in place, string taut. He is as ready as he will ever be when he faces the Child and says the question that's been slowly gnawing away at his insides as he stalked the Child through his lands:   
  
"Who are you?"   
  
And the child answers him, "I am Gallia."  
  
"You are one of Rome's," he says, "Did he send you?"   
  
"No."  
  
"Then why are you here?" He does not lower his bow.  
  
"Britannia told me to send a message to his brothers," Gallia says.  
  
He lowers his bow.  
  
"Cymru is closer," he says, though he hasn't seen Lugubelenus in years and isn't even sure if Rome has conquered him or not, to add to the collection of Children.  
  
"I don't know Cymru," Gallia says. If nothing else, it soothes his worries to know that Lugubelenus is apparently still free.  
  
"Cymru cares more," he says.  
  
"I don't know Cymru," Gallia says.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"Gallia," Gallia says once more. "You are Caledonia?"   
  
He pauses.  
  
That's quite the question, though he's not sure if Gallia even realizes it.   
  
Caledonia is one of his names, though he's not too fond of it. It's the name Rome whispered in his ear while taunting Mother with a knife to his neck, the name Arth now probably calls him as in the presence of Rome. It's a name he had no say in.   
  
Some call him The North of Albion, some simply The North. To some they refer to him through his tribes. Some say Pictland, still, though he isn't quite sure if he's that. Dál Riata, if he's actually younger than Áed, though they still aren't so sure of that, either. Or his human names, of which he has hundreds— some used by his mother, others his people call him. Cináed, Ewan, Ailpein.   
  
There is a name that he has that is not for humans, though he feels some time in the future it may be important—it's a name Áed's used for him and Arth, but Arth is Albion, and so he must be:    
  
"I am Alba," he says, "And I am also not one who helps those who stab my back before begging to be saved."   
  
Gallia watches him and for a moment cocks his head to one side and seems to be somewhere farther away than the forest. His hair flops partly over his face. His eyes squint. They're very blue eyes. Alba will never lend voice to the thought that they're a rather nice color blue.  
  
"You're a lovely person," Gallia says quite suddenly, falling back to the world so suddenly Alba isn't sure he was ever gone. "Do you try very hard?"  
  
"No, and I don't wish to be lovely," Alba says, a frown fixing over his features. There is something wrong with Gallia, he's sure. Perhaps it's just the smile and easy posture that remind him of Rome, but with the sweet voice of a woman and a flightiness that seems very familiar. He remembers the last time he'd seen flightiness. He'd seen it nailed to a tree and gutted, left to wither and die in her Childs' forest. "I wish to be left alone."  
  
"But I like you," Gallia says, "and I think you're a lovely person."   
  
Alba says nothing.   
  
"I do. I only think really lovely things are lovely, so when I say you're lovely, I mean it."  
  
"Albion ran and built a wall to keep me away," Alba says. "I could not help him if I wanted to. I could sneak into Rome's house, but I won't risk myself. I have children to remember. And Rome will not spare them. I heard about Boudicca. I saw what he did to my mother. I am not Albion— or Brittania, if you prefer, and I do not fool myself by saying how nice Rome will be."  
  
Like Arth did. Like Arth didn't see their mother, nailed to the tree. The image flashes on the back of his eyelids as he blinks, appears as his mother calls out for him when he sleeps at night. It's been years since he saw his family.  
  
Gallia smiles. "I like you better now," he says.   
  
Alba's scowl deepens. "What was Albion's message?" he asks. He does not say he is eager. He does not say he is worried. He simply stands with his arms ready and scowl fixed on his face to let Gallia know not to play with him, though Gallia does not seem to understand that part. Perhaps it's something to do with living alongside Rome; he seems diseased enough to be catching.  
  
"'Save me, Rome said he'd be nicer and I miss mummy,'" Gallia says, his voice turning high and squeaky in imitation of Arth's, and rolls back onto the balls of his feet.   
  
Alba feels something black and ugly curl and lodge in his chest. His hands clench into fists and his teeth bar in his mouth. They bar so tightly he has to take deep breaths in through his nose instead before he can release the tension and anger and  _hate_  in his arms as his mind screams,  _I TOLD HIM SO I TOLD HIM SO._  
  
Alba has a temper.   
  
He breathes in, out, and lets it go.   
  
And for the moment his temper is still under his own control  
  
"Go back and tell him what I've told you," he says, taking another deep breath and closing his eyes. Perhaps, if he doesn't see Gallia's face, he won't see Rome behind them. He won't see his littlest brother in Rome's clutches. He won't feel the need to grab Arth by the shoulders and shout  _I told you so, I told you so, you stupid, stupid little leech!_ , "I can't help him. Nor do I want to, anymore. I could have, but he chose Rome instead of me, and it was his own choice to be a slave."   
  
He might have helped, if Rome hadn't cooed as he lifted Arth up and held him tightly in those powerful arms.  
  
"I didn't choose to be a slave," Gallia says.  
  
The hell Gallia didn't.  
  
"If you don't have another message, leave," Alba says.  
  
"I can't find my way back. It was hard enough finding you in the first place. Can't I stay a while? What do you eat?"   
  
"Romans," Alba says. He neglects to say that they're not exactly his most common meal, and frankly he prefers venison, but there's something satisfying about seeing Gallia grind to a halt and stare at him for a good minute before appearing to brush it all off.  
  
"Well, while I'm here I'll cook you food as thanks. How about that? I'm sure you'll like it, I'm told I'm very good at making things taste nice."   
  
Alba rolls his eyes.  
  
Gallia smiles, "What can I call you? Besides Alba. Or Caledonia, since you don't like it. Do you have a name?"   
  
Alba decides then and there that Gallia must simply like difficult questions.   
  
Alba's not sure of that name either, and even if he were, he wouldn't Name himself. There are some names that he's fond of. Some that he allows himself to be called by the people who don't Recognize who he is, or who grow uncomfortable, or what he could call himself around children whom he doesn't particularly want to trouble with such things.  
  
It's still a difficult question, though. A rude and dangerous one.  
  
"I have many names, and names have power here," Alba says, feeling the need to make sure Gallia knows names are usually something to be offered, not begged. Then, he considers his names, and which he is most comfortable going by, before settling on one he's most familiar with. "…but with my children, I am Beithe."  
  
Gallia sticks out his lips and seems to be mulling the letter over mutely, sounding it out and translating it to his own language. "Like the tree?"  
  
Beithe nods. "I was born beneath one," The beithe trees are all around them in the forest. Birch trees. Tall and enduring, shining white in the darkness. He's fond of them.   
  
He waits for Gallia to offer his other name.   
  
Gallia does not, and has apparently not understood the order of things— which isn't particularly surprising, considering who's likely been tutoring him— and so Beithe decides it's all right to nudge him along. "And you? Do you have another name? Or has Rome taken it from you?"   
  
Gallia smiles and puts his finger to his lips, "You can't tell anyone," he says, "because Rome might hear and then he'd get mad at me."  
  
Gallia began to creep towards Beithe, suddenly leaning in beside him— and Beithe realizes with a surge of lightning down through his gut that Gallia is taller than him.   
  
The golden Child leans down until his breath just brushes Beithe's ear.  
  
"Franciscus," Gallia says, "Because my father will reclaim me when Rome falls."  
  
There is no more Beithe can say to that.  
  
And so he says nothing. He slings his bow over his shoulder, slips his arrow back into its holder, turns, and walks south slowly, allowing Gallia to follow him into the woods.


	2. 410 to 800 (but it secretly slips up to 900 at the end)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Rome falls, Saxony invades England, and Scotland helps him. Fortunately, Wales introduces England to a man who will be their savior--his name is Arthur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god the end notes....
> 
> The end notes are longer than the chapter itself.  
>  
> 
> Anyway, I'm exhausted and shout by all means be sleeping. Whoops. Any typos or mistakes will hopefully be fixed sometime tomorrow.

He nearly kisses Arth when Rome withdraws troops from the island. It's the first time in years— _years_ — that he's seen a part of his family.   
  
It's such a short time that they have to see each other, though. It's been months at least, possibly years, since Rome left. Movement takes time. He understands why it took Arth so long to come and find him. He understands why he had to hover beside the wall for weeks at a time in order to finally meet one of his brothers once more. He'd been so tempted to build or buy or steal a boat, or just to throw himself in the ocean and swim across the sea to Áed. He wasn't sure if he should enter Arth's lands on his own, or if he should just wait for him to come. He wasn't sure if he could traverse Arth's land to visit Lugubelenus— who he knows to have been struggling— or if he should have just tried to sneak along the shoreline.   
  
He hadn't been very sure of much, lately. He and Aéd had stopped attacked some time before after being driven back by Rome again. Instead, Beithe waited for news. Waited for years for news, and disliked what he heard each time it finally arrived.  
  
He'd heard of warlords and in-fighting. There were rumors that Vortigern is reigning supreme but the wars are not yet over. There are rumors that Rome has completely abandoned their isle to its own devices. There are rumors that Rome is falling.   
  
Beithe thinks it all over as he perches on the very top of the wall; he watches his brother's lands, waiting for something he finds difficult to clearly defining.   
  
One day with a strong breeze and heavy clouds, his wait ends, and Arth comes to the wall. Arth comes with horsemen and he comes with workers.  
  
He comes and shrieks when Beithe throws himself off the wall to wrap Arth in a tight embrace.   
  
He doesn't pay attention as the men Arth brought with him all jump three feet in the air and pull out their swords and daggers. Of course they would. Arth's people were fighting for the Roman's against Beithe's people for so long, it would be a habit for them to draw at the sight of spirals. In a moment, Arth will tell them that it's all right, that Beithe is family and won't hurt any of them as long as they don't touch the rest of the family. Beithe is certain he will, and waits for it.  
  
Arth doesn't tell them to put down their weapons. He remains stiff and surprised in Beithe's arms. Beithe thinks that perhaps he should have a made a little more noise so Arth would know he was coming.   
  
"I missed you," Beithe mutters into the top of Arth's head, pressing his lips to his brother's scalp to calm him. With one final tight squeeze, Beithe releases his younger brother and takes a step back, "You're not badly hurt, right? He's gone for good? Did he do anything permanent?"  
  
Arth is scowling. He might have been ever since the hug began, but Beithe doesn't entertain the notion for very long. "The wall is permanent."   
  
Beithe rolls his eyes, "We can tear it down."   
  
The men who still haven't put down their weapons shift uneasily and mutter. Arth steps back farther away from him.   
  
"I'm here to build it," Arth says.   
  
Beithe takes a step towards Arth as Arth takes one more step away.   
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I don't want to see you."  
  
"You came right to where I was, Arth, you're not fooling anyone. It will all be fine. Rome isn't here anymore, right? You don't need to worry about us fighting if he's not even here."   
  
Arth yelps when Beithe grabs his arm.  
  
"Go away!"  
  
"Arth, I know it's been a long time, but—"   
  
"My name is Artorius," Arth snarls. A moment later, adds on, stutters out what seems to be an attempt at authority, "B-but you will call me Britannia."   
  
Beithe laughs and waits for Arth to laugh with him, and the joke will be over with, so Beithe can help and it will all go back to how it was. He's certain, in just a moment, Arth will laugh.  
  
Arth doesn't laugh.   
  
000   
  
On the day Arth doesn't laugh, a man who is usually a farmer skewers Beithe through the stomach with a dagger just moments after Beithe realizes fully what it means that Arth went to Rome.  
  
He crawls back into the woods a few days later when his stomach wound knits shut. He travels to his farthest, harshest north to entreat the Picts and other tribes before hiking south with them to a different point on the wall. A place on the wall where Arth hadn't brought his men to rebuild and guard as well.   
  
Beithe sees the cracks and breaks in the mortar, sees the places where the stones are a little worn down and the top a little lower than the rest of it. Sees all the imperfections in the wall that has kept him and his little brother separate for so long. He sees a boat to send a message to Aéd, calls across the sea to bring him over with the Scots help in teaching their youngest brother a lesson.  
  
He climbs to the top of the wall again, and gazes out across the fields of his brother's land.   
  
And Beithe invades.   
  
Vortigern, who Beithe can only vaguely remember hearing of along with the word 'tyrant', turns out to be the closest thing Britannia has to a king. A little voice in the back of his mind chastises him for not listening more closely to some of the rumors, and Beithe waves it off, unsure if the whisperer is a fairy or his own mind. There are more important things, he supposes.  
  
Beithe and Aéd invade with their warriors, their vim, their vigor and their rage, and they overwhelm their enemies.   
  
Then, Vortigern calls the Saxons.  
  
000  
  
It isn't long after the Saxon brothers are hired that Beithe and Aéd are forced to flee again over the wall, panting and unfulfilled.   
  
They hear word from the south that Britannia gives the Saxons a wide, toothy smile and an island in gratitude for chasing off his family.   
  
There's a sick sort of satisfaction when a few years later, the Saxons invade, too.  
  
000  
  
It's around 460 when Britannia asks for peace.   
  
The Saxons invite the scattered nobility and blood flows throughout the Night of Long Knives.   
  
Voltigern is taken, and Britannia is kingless.  
  
000  
  
Years into the carnage, there are rumors of a savior.   
  
Beithe has never met him, but when he sees Lugubelenus for the first time again in a brief calm between battles—and though Cymru was never taken by Rome, Arth's reaction has made Beithe wary, and instead he names Lugubelenus as 'Cymru' when they speak— when he sees Cymru again for the first time, Cymru is enthralled.  
  
"He's one of Britannia's, but he was raised in  _my_  lands. Britannia insists that Rome sent him to save us, but I know better. He's the estranged son of one of Britannia's kings. Uther, I think. There's a lot of changing rumors so it's hard to all make out. But most of them say he's the king's son raised by his uncle, is what I heard last. He's met one of the old wizards our mother told us about and took over his father's kingdom when he was slain just recently. And he  _fights_  like something other than a bloodthirsty fool."  
  
Cymru is just an inch taller than Brittannia, his hair is nearly as long as Aéd's— Éire's—Aéd's, his face smattered with unattractive freckles, but their features are just as rounded and his eyes glow with the same childish glee that Britannia's do when they speak about this savior to fight the Saxons. When Cymru continues to tell the rumors, it's his accent makes it sound as though he's singing the praises.  
  
"Have you met him?" Beithe asks.  
  
Cymru's face falls just slightly, the glint in his eyes fading just-so. "Not yet. But I'm certain I will, soon."  
  
They part ways peacefully and pick up their dead to bury and burn, for though they are brothers and still speaking cordially, Cymru has sided with Britannia this time, and Beithe has not.   
  
000  
  
The cities fall. The people are slain.  
  
There are fields of twisted, mangled bodies that smell like shit, iron and decay. There are hardly enough people left in the countryside to bury the dead. There are scores of fields like that, none exactly the same.  
  
Britannia cries for their mother under a yew tree while Cymru holds him in his arms and sings soothing songs until he calms himself and they return to their castles. They begin to call each other Artorius and Lugubelenus again once Britannia's people flee to the safety of Cymru's border.   
  
When they aren't distressed and rushing to battle, there's a slight quirk in Cymru's lips that reveals he may just be enjoying himself. If he realizes Beithe or a spy is watching, the quirk becomes something more like a gloating smirk, and Britannia never notices a thing. They are each other's last allies, though it's a loose alliance. They keep it loose intentionally, as Saxony only has eyes for Britannia and Cymru is confident in his mountains and defenses far more than his offenses.  
  
Beithe and Saxony have spoken and arranged a loose alliance of their own over the years. While Aéd's men have either died or returned home, Aéd has also vanished somewhere between the battle of the River Bassas where they buried King Caw and the Celidon wood where Aéd came back shaken from a meeting with a hermit fleeing into the trees. Aéd was never fully devoted to the war or confronting Britannia, Beithe thinks.  
  
Instead, only Beithe remains.   
  
000  
  
Britannia calls for Rome time and again, and Britannia must learn eventually that help will never come for creatures like nations. Beithe learned that battling Rome, and by all rights, Britannia should have learned it too.   
  
Beithe sits by a fire one evening, debating painting himself again— though is falling out of style despite his current Pictish company— Beithe decides that he must be the one to teach Britannia that lesson, and hope there was never a need for it again.  
  
000  
  
"Gallia is my brother," Saxony says as they stir the evening stew and the men divide it amongst themselves. It's meat stew. There's beef from slaughtered cows and chunks of chickens just recently beheaded, as well as a few grasses Beithe added. He's not used to so much meat every day as he's becoming accustomed to with Saxony.  
  
Saxony likes meat and mead, and talks fondly of the large halls for feasting he has back home. He hopes to build some in Britannia's land, once the invasion is over. There's never even a hint of doubt in his voice as he speaks of victory, despite Artair. The Artair Lugubelenus calls Emrys Wledig— Aurelius Ambrosius. Britannia calls him, ironically, Artorious. Saxony only calls him a setback; a delay. Saxony never records his losses in his otherwise immaculate records, but in every battle Artair is involved in, there's another defeat and a growing possibility that Artair will never be recorded by Saxony and instead kept as a memory to be placed in a far corner of the mind and forgotten.  
  
"Your brother?" Beithe says a moment after swallowing a spoonful of the meaty stew. He thinks for a moment more. "Is he small, with very soft blond hair and blue eyes? He was taken by Rome?"   
  
Saxony nods. "He is one of my distant brothers, but I know him."   
  
"Is he well?"   
  
"No. Rome has fallen, and my closer brothers are disciplining him."   
  
Beithe spoons his stew silently. Something a little bit heavy and a little bit squirmy settles deep in his stomach, a cold weight.   
  
Distantly, he thinks of a tree with old nails in it and a woman's skeleton. He thinks again, closer in time and space, of a little blond boy with hair that is unruly (not soft like lamb's ears) and green eyes (not nearly blue) and he thinks of disciplining that blond, green-eyed, smiles-with-crooked-teeth boy for being taken by Rome.   
  
"I understand," Beithe says.   
  
The stew honestly has far too much meat in it and the mead hasn't fermented properly. Beithe continues to eat his portion silently while Saxony boasts.   
  
"How do you know him?" Saxony asks suddenly. Beithe manages to suppress his startled descent back to the present into what looks like a twitch, instead.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Gallia. You're not very close to each other, and you were never taken by Rome. …I don't  _remember_  you being taken, in any case." Saxony's voice is boisterous and teasing, but there's something in how his eyes glint in the day's dying light that looks dangerous.  
  
Beithe tries to keep the meat down and wishes it were raining. It's usually raining, but not right then when he wants it to be. Maybe his throat wouldn't feel so hot and clogged if it were raining. He straightens his back and narrows his eyes and wishes he wore war paint.   
  
"Gallia was lost and I tended him until he was able to return to his home."   
  
Saxony nods, his braids falling around his head as he does so. He sips another cup of mead. Beithe feels sick watching. Once he returns to his own lands, Beithe will spend several years in fishing villages, he is certain.   
  
"I bet you tried to get him out really fast. A nosy little bastard, he is. Got it from the Romans. Father won't admit he's not one of us so we're not allowed to kill him, either. It's because of who his mother is, I know it. Father won't admit Rome sired him and Gaul was a whore."  
  
Beithe gives up on holding down the meat. He says something about Saxony being a poor son, exits the tent, and pukes in the bushes by the woods. He sleeps there that night, completely outside, vulnerable under the stars, and the rain never comes to drench him.  
  
000  
  
Britannia falls.   
  
Beithe and Saxony dispute— very briefly— over the fate of the small blond boy who's spent the last decades being battered, bloodied and beaten around. Cymru has retreated back into his lands without a word, taking Britannia's refugees with him, and while Beithe knows that when it comes to strength his only match on the islands is Aéd, who has been on his own island for years, he also knows that he cannot defeat Saxony.   
  
As a result, the dispute is brief; so brief, it never grows into anything larger than a fistfight.   
  
Beithe is shorter than Saxony, only just as wide, and the few men he had who haven't died are on their way home, leaving Beithe alone in what was once Britannia's lands, but he still manages to pin Saxony to the ground and give him a lovely bruise under the eye.   
  
"Arth will live."   
  
Saxony's knee catches his abdomen, but he manages to stay put even as he gasps for breath.   
  
" _Britannia?_ " Saxony says just before tangling his hand in Beithe's hair and giving a yank. Beithe shouts and sinks his teeth into Saxony's collar.   
  
By the end of it, Beithe lets Saxony have Britannia— all of Britannia, from Hardian's Wall all the way south to the coast; whatever isn't Cymru's land, which Beithe has no say in regardless. All of it, Saxony's, Beithe promises, on the condition that Britannia himself is alive. That no matter what happens to his lands, Artorious will be spared from swords, daggers, poison, execution, boiling, dismemberment, disembowelment, feeding to wolves and hungry dogs, never starved or left for the birds and fairies to peck at—   
  
Saxony agrees to it. No harm shall reach Artorious' body, and Beithe shall let Saxony have nearly all of the spoils of war.   
  
Saxony agrees, swears on his pinky finger, and orders Artorious bandaged and tended for. As he leaves Beithe and stalks towards the door, Saxony rubs the bites on his shoulder and mutters, "Good match for Gallia. Overdramatic whoreson."   
  
'Whoreson' is the word that hangs in the air even long after Saxony has left.   
  
In 804, the satisfaction when Francia cuts off Saxony's head is palpable on all sides of the Wall and the channel.   
  
Artorious takes Saxony's place as Angleland. Beithe changes his name to Alba officially, has a king and—  
  
And Franciscus is making an Empire in Europe, his Frankish conqueror nowhere to be seen, and wearing the title smugly on his brow.   
  
Beithe watches from afar how the contours of the continent's maps change year by year and the way the sun comes up over the curve of the horizon whenever there's a morning without rain.   
  
He doesn't see Gallia—who has since changed his name— and Angleland never stops cursing him from the other side of the wall. He can't see Cymru for Angleland's interference, and the only friend he could see peacefully with any regularity was Aéd.   
  
The Picts die without any notice and the contours of his own map change. It's a lonely change and a gradual one, and the idea of having a uniting king is still new and a fragile notion in his lands.   
  
Beithe never met Artair, he's never had a savior before, and frankly he still doesn't think there's any need for saviors who don't fulfill their purpose, so he settles down in the woods once more and gives up on painting his face entirely.  
  
He builds a small shack to sleep in when he doesn't want to enter his villages or sleep exposed to the elements, and all of this only happens when he feels the crushing need to run from his nobility and recover from his new world of politics for several weeks. When he sleeps in his shoddily built shack in the middle of the damp and chilly woods, he sleeps alone.  
  
Each morning he climbs alone, sometimes barefoot, to one of his peaks. There, he watches the curves of the rising sun, and Beithe tells himself that things will never change— and he's perfectly fine with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> -The Frankish invasion is what’s happening. Rome is attacked by barbarians (Germania). Gallia is currently a part of Rome. The Franks and a few other clans are the ones who take Gallia. Gallia falls hard. He’s still alive, though, just apprenticed, sort of. He survives by adapting to Frankish rule, intermarriage, Christianity, and eventually grows into the Frankish Kingdom and gives birth to HRE. Then he invades England and he and Scotland will meet for the first time since they were kids.
> 
> -The Saxon Wars (771-804) France kills Saxony on the mainland. Francis really loves this era, because he has a kickass EMPEROR called Charlemagne.  
>    
> -Beithe officially changes his name to Alba when he becomes the Kingdom of Alba in 900, right around the time the Vikings show up and start fucking up all his new shit. Also, he’s never been very good at politicking. 
> 
> -theoretically the Saxons invited the British nobility to have peace talks, massacred them, and made Voltigern into their puppet. It was called the Night Of The Long Knives. If this happened, it happened around 460, and would be a great way to unclutter the potentially rebellion leaders so King Arthur could have his start at all.
> 
> -If Arthur existed, he fought twelve major battles, and won every single one of them except the one where Mordrid stabbed him. Arthur might have actually been several different leaders brought under the name of one (Artorious) , considering he would have had to have lived around 100 years to do everything he did.
> 
> PS - Launcelot was a France self-insert fantasy. Just so you all know.
> 
> The Roman Empire withdrew from Britain in 410 following a series of fights with invaders, small peasant revolts from Britannia itself, and having the Germanic barbarians forced into Roman lands by the Huns. By which I mean Germania started attacking Rome because there was less land for the two of them. Rome fell about a hundred or so years later, leaving Mama Greece in charge of the Byzantine Empire, aka the Western Roman Empire. Saxony’s invasion of England also lasted around 100 years. 
> 
> Unfortunately, without Rome, England was kind of weak, needing others to defend it when the people from the North of the island invaded, which brings us to…
> 
>  The Saxon invasion of England could've happened two ways. The one I’m using is that Vortigern (the warlord who rose victorious during a civil war in England which followed the power vacuum created by the absence of Roman authority) took power. the Scots (who are currently actually Irish) and the Picts (who are the super far north Scottish (who are not Irish)) and possibly some other Scottish clans— they all invaded England. The last time they invaded was before 410, the year Rome left, so it’s the first time we know that Arthur had to deal with that completely alone. Vortigern hired the forces of two Saxon brothers to help fight the Irish/Scots, Picts and other clans. As a reward he promised them the island of Thanet, as well as supplies to help the settlement. The Saxons got the island and supplies, but eventually asked for more supplies. Vortigern decided this would be a good time to snub the people who repelled the motherfucking Picts and Irish/Scots, and didn’t give them anymore supplies.
> 
> And that’s one reason why the Saxons might have invaded England. 
> 
> A second theory is that the Saxons came to England in exile and they come begging for work or something. Then the same things happen. Either way, the Saxons invade. Right after the Saxons invade, the Picts and Irish/Scots and some of the other clans go back into England. And they vanish.
> 
> Seriously. I couldn’t find anything about what happened to the Picts, Irish/Scots after they crossed the wall again. I had two sources claim there was a Pictish-Saxon alliance and the Picts and Irish were fighting with the Saxons against the Welsh and Britons/English-to-be, and one source that said the Picts and everyone were fighting with the Britons/English-to-be and the Welsh against the Saxons in a good old-fashioned family smackdown that totally failed. I went with the alliance.
> 
> Anyway, the Britons hold off the Saxons for about 100 years until a theoretical King Arthur (who may have in fact been several kings who sort of blurred together into one idol) dies. The Welsh, Scottish territory and the Irish are mostly unaffected except with an influx of Breton immigrants. The Saxons take over and pretty much repopulate Britannia. 
> 
> And that is why Arthur is more closely related to Ludwig than he is to his actual brothers. 


	3. After 1066, But Not By More Than Two Or Three Years

It had been so long since he last saw Franciscus, Beithe was referring to him as "Gallia" again before he'd even actually seen him. After Arth became Artorious Angeland and let Lugubelenus slip into Cymru, he didn't want to use 'Franciscus' as a name when that name might not even be right anymore. He wasn't Alba when he was Beithe nor Beithe when he was Alba, and he assumed it must have been the same with the other Children and People.

The forest was very quiet that day. It was a strange feeling, to think that the forest was quiet. It wasn't truly: there were birds chattering from the fallen leaves in the mud to the tallest of branches above his head. Deer, foxes and wolves slinked about almost soundlessly, but he could still hear them. There used to be fairies too. A few remained, but Christianity had mostly chased them away.

(there was a guilt he felt in that he didn't feel any guilt for leaving the fae. It was just so nice to think that he might have a world with no strife just waiting for him and a lessening number of perils on the way. The Otherworld was sort of like Heaven, he thought, though he'd never been to The Otherworld himself. His people could be stopped from going there at all, but now, maybe losing your head would have nothing to do with your suffering or bliss

All his heads had rotted over the years, and Beithe wondered if he was the only one still worrying if he'd trapped the souls of his people permanently. There had to be someone else who'd hunted heads.)

The forest was quiet and nearly devoid of Fair Folk of any sort. So few of the Fair Folk remained that as he peered over Hadrian's Wall from a tree limb, he hardly bothered looking for Red Caps.

It could be good, the lessening number of fairies. It meant that when he spied Gallia approaching the wall, he didn't need to shout warnings for creatures the boy—who looked like a young man now— could no longer see.

It was the first time he'd seen Gallia in years, aside from in the faces of nobles who crept a little farther north than their brethren, or as a flicker in the faces of Britons more accepting of their new rule. He was sure not all of them were accepting. Judging from the number of people who fled into his lands, he didn't think they were, but he'd given up on understanding his youngest brother by then.

He saw Gallia before Gallia saw him. The Child-Person came alone, leaving a small escort on the peak of a hill where Beithe could barely make them out. From the hill all the way down and upward again to the base of the wall, Beithe observed Gallia with his heart pounding. His head split painlessly, if hectically, trying to organize a sudden burst of frantic thoughts and flashes of images that flooded his mind in the moment Gallia began to climb the stones. 

Rome marching down the hills. Arth with his builders, twisting with a sneer into Artorious. Saxons in the woods. Vikings in the water. Gaels on top of the wall.

"Hello? Beithe? I'm sorry about all the nobles!" 

Things snapped back into focus. Gallia perched on the top of the wall, swiveling his head back and forth to catch a glimpse of Beithe in the trees. His hair was still long, but his arms and legs had developed muscles and he looked to be a good few hands taller than he had been before. His eyes were still blue.

"I'm alright, Gallia, Just not too many more, or I will be upset with you," Beithe said. 

Gallia's eyes zeroed in on him the moment his perch was revealed. Beithe tired not to squirm, but his insides are felt like they were trying to eat his outsides and he wondered briefly if there were really lots of fairies still around to attack him and he just wasn't as good at seeing them anymore. Gallia spoke again as Beithe tried to breathe. "Good. But my name isn't Gallia, anymore. I'm Francia now." 

After a moment, after gathering his breath and trying to avoid holding his stomach even though his nerves made him feel sick, he asked the question that scared him the most. Get it out of the way now, he thinks. "Are you still Franciscus?"

Franciscus smiled, beautiful and pink. "I am! Are you still Beithe?" 

Beithe nodded calmly but his stomach was still flipping frantically. All he wanted to do was relax for a minute. "I am."

"Wonderful!" Franciscus continued to smile. Beithe heart continued to pound, but as the moments passed it became almost tolerable. It wasn't as dreadful a pounding, but a little bit happier and a little bit more filled with relief. Franciscus spoke again. "Can I come over, now?" 

"Come over," Beithe said, and slid down from the tree.

000

That not long after, Beithe caught salmon and Franciscus cooked it over a fire. Franciscus didn't question why Beithe wasn't with his king and Beithe doesn't ask Franciscus how he convinced his nobles and court and Empire to let him go so far north almost alone. 

Franciscus had brought several jugs of wine with him, though he'd had to run all the way back to the hill he'd just come down to retrieve them. 

"Rome used to love my wine," he said as he handed Barclay a jug of it. "He used to trade it to your people, I think. But he drank a lot himself, as well. I wish he could see me now, more powerful than he was." Franciscus grinned. His teeth were pearly white. With the white birches behind him, his teeth seemed to have an eerie glow— like a wolf at night. Barclay stopped his shudder before it grew big enough to be seen, and refrained from comment. 

"How are things in your home?" he said instead. 

"Well!" Franciscus took a sip from his own jug, set it down in the hollow of a tree root and adjusted himself in front of the fire. "I have lots of fiefs and the vassals are practicing subinfeudation so no one really has enough troops to cause very much trouble. We haven't had toovery many Viking attacks since they took Normandy— I mostly made friends with them. Are you still having trouble? And do you have any spice?" 

"Probably no spices you're thinking of. And if you didn't notice, the Vikings were about to attack England when you arrived." He had no idea what subinfeudation was.

Franciscus rolled his eyes. "Please. Harold was a king, not a raider. There's a difference." 

"He was a Norseman." 

"And now I'm a Norman. And you're a Gael."

"You're still a Gael."

"But I'm also a Norman." 

"You can't be both." 

"Can't I?"

Beithe was silent. 

"Can't I?" Franciscus asked again. "I'm a Norman who was born a Gael, and I've still got the body of a Gael even though I live like a Norman. It's not very complicated. You make things quite complicated."

"I like things simple," Beithe said, turning the salmon. 

"I'm very sure."

"Let's talk about something else." 

"Like what?" 

Neither of them said another word until the salmon was cooked all the way through and they both ate half of their portion. Several times Beithe began to speak but pretended to hear something in the woods in at the last moment to cover up his failure to carry through. Franciscus' silence felt much more pronounced and purposeful. He sat with his eyes lidded and staring off at nothing in particular, huffing through his nose occasionally. Beithe wondered if he was pouting. Or awaiting some sort of apology. Or maybe he just wanted to make the silence as hostile as he could in some form of petty revenge. It didn't matter very much, because no matter what the silence meant, it made Beithe's stomach go back to squirming like a tangle of giant worms. He was certain he'd gone through weeks without a word to anyone, but it didn't make him and less eager for the silence to end.

"So," Beithe finally said after a particularly large bite of his fish. "What was being an Empire like?" 

"Cluttered," Franciscus said. "I'm quite happy at the moment with how things are with the Holy Roman Empire being separate from me. He was a fidgeter. Never stopped moving. After half a century, it begins to get extremely annoying, you see." He snorted and drank his wine.

"Holy Roman Empire?" 

"Yes, he used to be East Francia, but after we took over Middle Francia it seemed a little silly, and his kings are technically proclaimed Holy Roman Emperors, but let me tell you. The brat's not Holy, Roman or an Empire."

"Oh," Barclay said, wondering if it was a joke and if he should be laughing or not. 

Franciscus took a bite of his salmon. Beithe wondered if he should think of him as 'Francia' instead. He bit his own salmon, and tried to forget about it. 

"How is… my brother?" 

"Englaland?" Francia said. "Annoying. Not very different than he was before. I'm still working on teaching him to be quiet."

Beithe set his salmon down. "I've had a lot of people climb the wall into my lands. From his lands. They said you were burning down the entire country."

"They're exaggerating," Francia said. "It's only a few towns. I can't exactly let rebellion go unpunished, can I?" 

"They said their towns weren't rebelling." 

"The other ones were. They needed to be shown what will happen if they try again," Another bite of salmon. Beithe caught a glimpse of Francia's teeth. They were still almost pearly white. Sharp enough to rip meat from the bone with hardly any trouble at all. 

"What are you doing to him?"

"Teaching him a lesson." 

"Will you kill him?" 

Francia paused with the salmon halfway out of his mouth.

"I can. Do you want me to?"

Francia's eyes were blue. Beithe could remember hundreds of years before, how they would occasionally glaze over for minutes on end until Francia came crashing back down to the physical world and lose that glass. His face was beautiful, cherubic, and is still soft and curved, and framed with golden curls. Beithe could remember Saxony and how powerful and how numerous and how much meat he would eat, just because he could stomach it. 

Beithe could remember hearing word that Francia spat as he severed Saxony's head from his thick shoulders and knocked the rest of the kneeling body to the ground where it stayed for a month before finally turning to stone and dust.

"No," Beithe said, pulling himself back into the forest. They were surrounded by birch, smoke, the smell of cooked salmon and the heat of the fire. There were a hundred animal sounds to hide their conversation, but the forest still seemed quiet. "Leave him alive. It would be too much trouble to kill him." 

"No really—" Francia tried to begin before Beithe continued. 

"I really wouldn't want you to go to the trouble. Besides, he would hide up in someone else's lands and— I don't want you to have to tromp through Cymru's mountains or bother Éire."

Francia made a face. "Fine. I don't think we'll be here long anyway. William isn't fond of Englaland, anyway."

Something about that didn't sound quite right.

"If he doesn't like it, why is he here?" Beithe asked, tugging on a few loose bits of fish skin. 

"Because he can, and he wanted to be. He had a claim," Francia said. 

"That," Beithe said, "is a dumb reason." 

Francia rolled his eyes. "Well, now I've got a feudal relationship with your little brother so my kingdom's stronger, we get to see each other more often than once every few centuries, and soon Englaland won't bother either of us anymore." 

Beithe straightened. 

"What are you doing to him?" 

Francia blinked up at him innocently. "Putting down rebellion."

Beithe tried to temporarily forget who Francia first learned about putting down rebellions from. "How?"

"The usual way." 

"Francia," Beithe rose up on his ankles until he was perked up tall enough to be looking down at him. "Don't you dare kill him after all the trouble I've been put through keeping him alive." 

Francia set down his food. Maybe was his instincts after being an empire, maybe was something in their blood, but Francia rose himself a little up as well as though in challenge. "You've been though trouble? I thought he was just a little cockroach."

"I told you not to kill him." Another inch higher.

"You know I can, you know. Even accidentally," Francia rose to his knees.

"That's why I'm telling you not to." Beithe was only just barely squatting. 

"Do you love the little rat? Is that what's going on? I've never met brothers so keen on such a troubling sibling." Francia stood.

"I think you should shut your trap before I punch you," Beithe said. He couldn't stand taller than Francia. 

"It's an island full of lovers," Francia said, grinning, "Cute." 

Beithe punched him. With a grunt, Francia doubled over, clutching a spot on his stomach which would be bruising badly in a few hours. A moment passed when suddenly Francia straightened and lunged at Beithe.

They fought over the forest floor. Beithe grabbed Francia's skull and knocked him into a tree. Francia bit his leg and pulsed his hair. Beithe tried the same until Franica kneed him hard in the gut and elbowed his cheek. It didn't take much more before their fight's dissolved into a rolling, punching, kicking brawl on the ground while they were stuck with sticks and pressed down on hard rocks and roots. 

It took nearly an hour before both of them sprawled out on the ground, bleeding out of their noses and holding their scraped palms and knees delicately as they waited for the stinging to subside. By some miracle, neither of them had fallen into their fire pit.

"Are you happy now?" Francia asked, sucking a cut on his arm.

"No," Beithe said, looking into the woods, occupied with discerning the location of the nearest spring to wash off before they attracted something unpleasant. Francia sighed dramatically across from him, lolling his head back and letting his arms flop out. 

"Are you ever happy?" Francia said. 

"Yes," Beithe said. 

"Do you want to punch me again, then? It wasn't pleasant, just so you know."

"Shut up about Englaland." 

Francia raises another eyebrow and hums.

"I'm tired of only talking about Englaland," Beithe hissed. "I feel like it's the only thing I ever fucking talk about with anyone. I'm sick of talking about him."

Francia sighed and propped himself up into a sitting position before seeming to decide it was too much trouble and instead leaned back against a tree. "You bring up the topic." 

"No I don't." 

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do." 

Beithe threw a rock at Francia's head. It missed. 

Francia scowled at him. "Well it's not as though we have much else to talk about," he said. "I mean, what do you do, live in the woods? Fish? That's hardly much conversation, and I highly doubt you'd understand or appreciate the intricacies of a true nobility or kingdom—"

"—I am a kingdom—" 

"—considering you're still barely a few clusters of people hanging together, hardly serving a king."

"I will hit you again." Bethe growled. 

"I'll hit you back again." Francia said.

They stared at each other across their tiny clearing for some time. 

"There's nothing more cheerful to talk about then Englaland," Francia said. "Nothing you'd understand anyway." 

"Fuck you." 

Francia ignored him and continued to scowl. "Watch the wall for an attack." 

Beithe stood again. "Are you threatening me?"

Francia shook his head, remaining where he sat. "No. It will happen whether I want it to or not. I'm Francia, not Englaland. The only authority I have over his king is that of his nobility, and I think at least you can understand how hard it is to get nobles to do anything right."

"Explain yourself or get out." 

"Your brothers, too. The little one— Cymmery? —with the bad names. He's begging for it. Maybe Ireland too, soon." 

Beithe amended his statement. "Get out." 

Very slowly with his eyes down, Francia rose and began to walk into the wood. 

Beithe let him go a few trees' distance before shouting, "The wall is that way, whoreson." 

Francia stared at him, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am essentially giving up on endnotes at this point. They keep getting trimmed to fit the character limit and things stop being fun when I can't have my ridiculous notes. So I'm giving you bare bones right now. 
> 
> I'm trying to shift from historical drama to something resembling a plotline at this point. Hopefully it's working all right. 
> 
> _HISTORICAL NOTES!___
> 
> France, lead by William the Bastard (a literal bastard) invaded and took England over in 1066 after fighting with the Anglo-Saxon king who had just finished fighting with a group of Scandinavians with great names. That is what just happened in this chapter. The French then proceeded to invade the rest of the British Isles, successfully invading Ireland and Wales and saving Scotland for last, at which point I have no idea what happened but it seems to have been some sort of malicious tango, erased from history. That is next chapter. 
> 
> William the Bastard was a feudal lord of the King of France. That means that the Feudal Lords in England (they're being hazed into the feudalism system at this point) are vessels of a vessel of a foreign king, because William claims the English throne for himself while still subservient to the French king. Therefore, England and France are now one very disorderly country.
> 
> I had a long story to explain HRE when I posted this on dA. The short version is France is Germany's mother because he split himself into three parts when Charlemagne died. So there were three little Francias running around. East Francia (HRE) and West Francia (France) proceeded to cannibalize Middle Francia (dead kid) and then grow apart into separate kingdoms. 
> 
> If anyone knows about HRE's history, then they now know that Francis murdered both of his siblings/children. He makes England look like a great sibling. At least England only locks you in a closet and slowly starves you. He doesn't actively kill you. Unless you're an American Indian. Then everything's fucked. 
> 
> Scotland is finally his own kingdom at this point! He is officially the Kingdom of Alba. As in, the kingdom I've been calling him as ever since the first chapter, but the name he's only actually had ever since the 900s. Yeah. Oops.
> 
> 000
> 
> I'm taking liberties with the names again. Englaland (probably) isn’t the real name for England in this time period, but I’m using it as it’s during the transition from the Norman Invasion— before English got the French language stuck in it. It is a big change. How big? Just remember every time you say “F” and “V” that they used to sound exactly the same, until the French showed up. You could have no rendezvous before the French, thus depriving us all of a great song. There would be no ‘forest’ or ‘pardon/excuse me’ when people farted, burped and/or ran into each other (in England, and possibly the other British Isles, pardon/excuse me are used for burping and farting. In America they’re used for when you bump into another person, which the British use ‘sorry’ for. ) So basically, the Englaland is here to represent the time before the changes to the language, and once the changes started taking hold it will be England as we know it today. He was Englaland at some point, I just don’t know exactly which, so I’m using this one. 
> 
> 000
> 
> Brief Celtic Mythology rundown: 
> 
> Red Caps - haunt Hadrian's Wall. Kill people brutally.
> 
> The Otherworld - The Celtic afterlife where you don't age or hurt or need, ever.
> 
> Head Hunting - How people steal your soul and prevent you from entering the Otherworld. Also make great trophies.
> 
> 000
> 
> My headcanon is that all nations are secretly sort of assholes inside. That is my headcanon.
> 
> So uh.
> 
> I'll just get back to my NaNoWriMo right now (screeeech)


	4. 1069 to 1070: The Shortest Timespan Yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Norman England tries to take Ireland. 
> 
> Beithe tries to stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuckin hell this this has been ready for a while and I just realized that I never posted it here!!!! I am so sorry omfg I actually cannot explain this absence at all except that I have no idea. I blinked and suddenly it's been half a year oh god

Ireland was attacked before Alba—by then, Beithe had word from a similarly battered and particularly sardonic Cymru.  
  
" _Methinks the Normans need fewer horses,_ " the letter began," _and more dead. The only trouble I see is convincing them of that. I tried the direct manner, but it does not seem to be particularly persuasive.  I saw Arthyr not long ago. He looks better for what has happened, yet I find pity for him. At least this Roman has a pretty face. It wouldn't be satisfying to punch it, otherwise._ "  
  
Beithe wrote back, saying, " _It is quite satisfying to punch, but watch for his right hook,_ " and hoped Cymru assumed the knowledge was gained during battle and not a shouting match in the middle of the woods, even though Beithe's next words were, " _He hasn't yet battered at my peace._ "  
  
Not a week after his original letter was sent, Beithe sent another stating that he had heard word from Aodhán and there was a small group of mercenaries gathering to travel to Ireland which could easily make a spare place for Beithe. He would not reply to any new letters for a long time.  
  
He sent his second letter off, hoping it would reach his brother soon. Then, he took his bow and arrows, a sword and a bag of rations, and walked onto the mercenary ship without a single one asking him why he— who still looked very much like a child— was so ready to go.  
  
(One did ask, mid-journey, apparently having suddenly realized that Beithe's voice was still pitched like a child's before puberty. Beithe said he had family in Ireland, and when he heard the news he was possessed by the oddest and most urgent bloodlust a Scot had ever known. The man relented and spent the rest of the trip chuckling and satisfied. )  
  
The sailing was smooth, and not many hours later Beithe stepped on the rocky beaches for the first time in years. He was one of the last out of the boat. By the time he was on solid ground, some of the mercenaries were stumbling around, trying to regain their land legs. Some were seasick and others scanning the foreign shores for what might have been their first time. Others, who had been in the worst of the salt spray or took badly to water stood close to the signal bonfire that had guided them to land.  
  
Beithe spied his brother almost immediately amongst the small waiting Irish rabble. The last time Beithe went to Ireland, his brother was Áedán. This time, before he could even start holding his breath, his brother trotted down the beach and told him— with none of the flair England used or the heavy dread there was with Francia— "They call me Aodhán now, so if you hear someone call me that, don't flip your shit, okay? Just because you haven't changed your name in almost a millennia doesn't mean I have to be boring."   
  
Beithe blinked and his mouth hung open. Aodhán grinned, took him by the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, if we're lucky there should be a few more years before Armageddon for you to catch up," and led him across the shore.   
  
000  
  
Aodhán hadn't changed much since Beithe had last seen him. He was still longer and lankier than all their other brothers, his bright red hair hung in limp tangles about his face, and his entire body was smattered with freckles. His eyes were strikingly green. Some of the humans in the streets parted for him as he passed, cringing and watching warily, and doubly so when they caught sight of Beithe's similar coloration.  
  
("They know about red hair and green eyes," Aodhán said with a grin. "They know I'm not really a witch, though, so they should let you be as well." )  
  
He led Beithe to a wooden castle and through its halls. Then, while the nobles spoke of tactics and numbers, he led Beithe aside to a smaller bedroom deep in the fort. There was a single, narrow window in the wooden wall. The rest of the room was covered with tapestries and dried grasses, as though the one who slept in the straw mattress slept violently. The floor was bare.  
  
"I've been staying here," Aodhán said. He promptly plopped down on the abused mattress. Bits of straw stuck out of holes, and not a minute after Beithe sat down beside his brother, he began to itch.   
  
"So you're at war with Francia, officially?"   
  
"People're dead, mercenaries are coming in," Aodhán snorted. "It's pretty official. Huge clusterfuck."  
  
"How did this even start?" Beithe asked. "You just asked for help in your letter. Weren't you already fighting before Francia got here?"   
  
Aodhán paused and thought, raking his unnaturally vast memory— vast even for a nation— to come up with the story. "I'm  _pretty sure_ what happened was Dervorgilla ran off with Mac Murchada, so O'Ruarc went and usurped Mac Murchada, what, fourteen years later I think it was? So Mac Murchada ran off to Aquitaine and asked England's king and Cymru for help, and he came back with fucking  _horses_." He paused again and turned to Beithe, eyes wide and honest. "Do you know how fucking  _scary_  horses are?"   
  
For the next three minutes, he cursed horses until Beithe was sure it would take a few years of good deeds to take it all back.  
  
"And so Mac Murchada avenged his father's death." Aodhán was speaking again. "And  _then_  Strongbow said he would ally with the Normans, even though Mac Murchada already took over all the territory, because Francia wants me to stop getting the slaves England's selling to me and something about my church being substandard?" Aodhán paused and scowled. "And it is  _not_. Did I tell you what they made me?"   
  
As quickly as the scowl had appeared, Aodhán's eyes lit up at the idea of showing off whatever it was his churches had done. There was probably no way to really refuse him. He had already bounced onto the balls of his feet and scurried across the room in a blur of long limbs and red hair before Beithe had even managed a "no, I don't think so."   
  
Aodhán came to a stop in front of a shoddily patched blanket covering a trunk in the farthest, darkest, most sheltered corner of the room. He pulled a key off of a knotted belt around his waist, unlocked the chest and opened the lid to reach in and pull out yet another blanketed bundle, this one covered in blue.  
  
"The monks made it for me," Aodhán said as he carefully unwrapped the bundle. "A few years ago I was just looking around, staying at the monasteries, working. One liked me enough they gave me this as a gift." The blanket fell to the ground. Aodhán's grin was so wide it nearly reached his ears and looked as though his face threatened to rip in two as he held up his prize.  
  
It was a book.   
  
Beithe got off the battered straw mattress and went to the edge of the room to get a better look.   
  
The covers were hard and painted green with red and gold illumination. The pages were very nearly even and each hand-printed page was covered in colored inks and vibrant images. It was not a very thick book— not more than the width of two of Beithe's fingers— but it was very pretty.   
  
"Can you read it?" Beithe asked.   
  
Aodhán nodded. His finger hovered just above the first intricate line of text and he read, "Ecce praecipio tibi? Confortare et esto robustus noli metuere et noli timere quoniam tecum est Dominus Deus tuus in omnibus ad quaecumque perrexeris." Once he reached the end of the verse, he looked up at Beithe and said, "'Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and courageous. Don't be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee wherever thou goes.'" He paused again. "That may be a little paraphrased, but that's about what it says. I'm still not so good with Latin."   
  
"I can't read it at all," Beithe said, still looking with interest at the vellum. Aodhán made a face, but Beithe ignored it. "They wrote a whole bible just for you?"   
  
Aodhán nodded, the grin returning to his face in full force. "One of the older monks Recognized me. It took the monks three years to finish this. Isn't it  _amazing?_ " He closed the book gently and wrapped it once more with the blue blanket, placed it back in the trunk, and locked the trunk once more. "And Francia has the  _gall_  to insult my churches." His shoulders hunched and he snarled as he replaced the tattered blanket atop the trunk. "Fuck him."  
  
"I heard you have amazing churches—" Beithe began to say, hoping to cheer his brother up. Before he could finish speaking, Aodhán interrupted him.   
  
"I do," he said, his back straightening. "Come with me on Sunday. I'll show you, I've been working a lot on them. Come see."   
  
They returned to the strategy meeting with the nobles, which lasted until the end of the week. At the end, little had been decided on and aches were beginning to crawl up Aodhán's arms. He complained about them once. The army became restless.   
  
For a brief time they heard no new news of the Normans. Beithe found it comforting. Aodhán, on the other hand, was filled toe to tip with nervous energy and took to pacing his room until there was nearly a discernable trench in the floor.   
  
Beithe tried to comfort him. They held each other in the night like young boys, and waited for the war to come again.  
  
000  
  
They went Mass on Sunday.   
  
Aodhán and Beithe sat through the whole service in what must have been the only empty pew in the entire church— all the rest were filled with at least most of the city. The windows were expensive colored glass and the walls were covered with numerous tapestries and statues.   
  
Aodhán sat through the entire sermon with his head bowed, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. He mouthed the Latin words as though he had memorized every syllable. The one time he looked up was to point at one of the many tapestries on the walls and whisper, "I made that one. There was a little while where I just needed things to do with my hands, and somehow started weaving tapestries. That was my best one, so I put it in a place it would be safe for a long time." He paused for a moment before adding, "I probably need to work on my pride problem."   
  
Beithe shook his head, "I don't think it's that much of a problem."  
  
Aodhán rolled his eyes.   
  
He went to confess after the service and trotted back some time later to lead the way back to the castle. It had begun to drizzle by then. The sky was clouded over and the wind blew cold. Their bright hair was plastered to their heads and little rivulets rolled down their faces and arms as Beithe and Aodhán walked alongside each other, trying to avoid too many puddles without going too far off course at the same time. It was peaceful, and business went on as usual for a Sunday, with children in the street and splashing about.   
  
It was almost like there wasn't a war on, and Beithe wanted nothing more than to sit in the dirty, wet street with Aodhán's head on his shoulder and a little blond boy at his side and pretend there wasn't a thing wrong in the world.   
  
When they were almost halfway back to the castle, Aodhán began to limp.  
  
"Probably just some fucking heretics getting drunk and raiding," Aodhán said, waving his hand when Beithe suggested he sit and rest for a while. "It's Sunday. The Normans aren't barbarians. They wouldn't dare."   
  
A short distance later he halted all together and said, "The bean sidhe are crying."  
  
They ran the rest of the way back to the fortress and went shouting through the halls what Aodhán could gather from what he felt, just as the scouts began to return from the field. The nobles and generals and soldiers set to work. Aodhán stumbled to his room and flopped onto his battered bed, clasped his hands together over the rosary beneath his shirt and began to mumble once more in Latin.   
  
Beithe, however, went to the kitchen. There he found a pitcher of the previous day's milk. After a moment of guilty hesitation, he poured it into a dish which he set outside Aodhán's narrow window. He cut his finger and smeared blood below his eyes, and drew a circle in a corner which no one would notice. Only then did he kneel at the foot of Aodhán's bed muttering half-remembered prayers over a rosary which wasn't his.  
  
Best to appeal to as many gods as possible during wartime, after all. Something he wasn't quite sure of nagged at the back of his mind though, with the rosary laced between his fingers and Aodhán's quiet muttering beside him.  
  
Too many gods. A plethora of them. He couldn't appeal to them all in good conscience, and still claim to adhere to just one.  
  
000  
  
Two days later, he fought the Normans head-on for the first time.  
  
The Irish were overrun.

000

There were three skirmishes— not quite battles but certainly a far cry from peacetime— before Beithe realized Francia was on the island with them.   
  
The lookouts saw the Normans advancing on the camp before the morning meal was finished. Men raced for their swords and bows and lines. The Norman army advanced; their peasants sighted the camp and ran forward into the first line of Irish defenders. The Norman nobles held back, commanding their small, more disciplined factions while the Irish and their allies scrambled.   
  
It wasn’t long before the two groups clashed fully, their half-formed front lines crashing together and mostly failing to hold. In a front-on assault, the Norman bastards had the advantage. Some of the defenders fled in the chaos.  
  
Beithe met Francia in the middle of it.   
  
Even with his face half splattered in blood, Gaul’s son was growing into something gorgeous. Beithe nearly hit himself with his pommel when he realized what he was thinking midway through stabbing a Norman in the throat.  
  
Francia noticed him barely a moment after the Norman’s corpse hit the ground. Somewhere in the background, Beithe heard his brother’s cursing. Felt the rosary under his shirt. He killed another Norman who tried to take advantage of his distraction and threw the twitching body in the ground between himself and Francia.   
  
In the span of time it took Beithe to blink the blood out of his eyes, Francia’s face had changed. His teeth were barred and his sword was up, and he stabbed the twitching Norman man. The corpse stilled, out of misery instantly. Francia jerked his sword out of the corpses’ eye socket and raised it up once more. He stepped over the corpse, dove down and swung at Beithe’s legs, shouting.   
  
Beithe jumped back and stumbled. He hoisted his own sword and parried the next strike before trying to push back. He nearly cut Francia’s ear. Francia almost jabbed at his guts.   
  
It was not a long fight. Beithe almost stabbed Francia through his chainmail when Francia’s pommel connected with Beithe’s cheek and sent him tumbling to the ground. Not a moment later, Francia’s boot came down and knocked the air out of Beithe’s lungs.   
  
The world swam back in and out of focus. His eyes fluttered. His breathing was so ragged he may have misheard the words he thought were whispered into his ear as Francia stooped down until his lips were a hair from Beithe’s face.  
  
“You are an imbecile,” he thought Francia said. “Believe me when I say I’d much rather be elsewhere. Your brothers are alive.”   
  
The world still swam and his arms were heavy when Francia lifted the sword up again and swiped it across his neck.   
  
Beithe flinched a few seconds late, only registering the attack after it had passed. Still, it must have been the shallowest wound he’d received thus far— he could hardly feel it amongst his other hurts and for a moment, he thought Francia had utterly fumbled a beheading stroke.   
  
His breath returned in shallow gasps, soon after his ears worked again. He was certain he heard properly as Francia said, “Now stay down for the rest of this battle.” Then, Francia removed his foot from Beithe’s chest and ran off to slay an Irishman.   
  
By the time Beithe managed to lift himself up, Francia had vanished in the fray. Not long after Beithe rejoined the battle, another Norman appeared where one hadn’t been before and thrust him in the back.  
  
Beithe lay in the dirt for the rest of the battle, wracking his brains as to why Francia didn’t simply cut his head off and keep him out for the entire battle. He came up with nothing resembling a safe or sure answer as he lay there, dodging boots and waiting for his innards to knit back together.  
  
000  
  
It did not take long for the situation to look worse for the Irish, so his brother’s words caught him by surprise.  
  
“I think you should leave,” Aodhán said. He was curled on a rock, clutching his ears with a sour look on his face. Beithe’s heart sank when he recognized the posture. The bean sidhe were wailing again.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“What?” Aodhán didn’t uncup his ears. He had a special way of blocking out sound where he would press and unpress the little flap of skin in his ear and make each sound an unrecognizable din. He had done it to Beithe once. After the first few minutes it became painful, but Aodhán had his own opinions on whether sound was worse than discomfort.  
  
“Why?” Beithe said more loudly.   
  
“Because,” Aodhán said, “you may not be able to get out later.”  
  
Beithe stood and said, loudly enough for Aodhán to hear through his hands, “What sort of ally do you think I  _am_?”   
  
“One with half a brain, but not much more,” he said. “Now help me up; I need you to do something  _important_.”   
  
Beithe made a face and jerked Aodhán upright. One of Aodhán’s hands on his ears slipped and he flinched before putting it back in place. He gave Beithe a spiteful look.  
  
“You told me to,” Beithe said.   
  
“What?”   
  
“Nevermind.”   
  
He walked Aodhán through the roads and to the shack near the edge of the town the battles had forced them to make a temporary home. Near the end, Aodhán recovered his own legs and, despite the inaudible din in his ears, managed to show Beithe the drawer in which his precious book was kept.  
  
“I swear, if you so much as spill a drop of mustard or set it in the mud—”  
  
“—I’ll make sure someone’s taking very good care of it,” Beithe said. He repeated himself once more when Aodhán looked baffled (  _“wait, wait, what do snakes have to do with anything?”_  ) and wrapped the precious book tighter in its blue blanket. He removed the sack slung over his shoulder and placed the bundle in it, then tucked it under his cloak. “And they will know it is yours and if anything happens, it will be the first thing they protect. I promise.”  
  
Aiden nodded slowly, not looking very comfortable at the idea of being separated from his precious book. Slowly, he sat down and held his head more tightly in his hands, trying to block out all sound.   
  
“They keep screaming,” he whispered. “If you don’t get out now, Franica might head you off. I’ll be fine.”   
  
“I don’t want to leave you alone in— in the middle of a fucking _war_ ,” Beithe said.  
  
Aodhán didn’t seem to hear him, and gave Beithe a shove with his shoulder. “Get to the docks,” he said. “There will be at least one boat that can get you to your coast.” When Beithe didn’t go right away, his shoulders began trembling and screamed, “ _I want everyone in Ireland who isn’t fucking Irish to get the fuck out, can no one understand that?_ ”  
  
Beithe left, cradling the book under his cloak.   
  
As Aodhán promised, there was indeed a boat ready to set out, the sailors just beginning to untie her from the dock. He ran up to her and cried out. The crew allowed him to jump onto the deck and sail across the way with them— all cowards fleeing their homes. Blessedly, it was a small crew for a small boat. A small number of deserters.   
  
“There’s Normans in Alba too, you know,” Beithe told them.   
  
“Aye,” said one, lighting a small lantern as night fell, “but over there they aren’t crawling out of the woodwork, we’ve heard. The Scots actually know how to fight off invaders, we’ve heard.”  
  
Beithe grunted and curled in a blanket he was handed, since all the rowing positions were filled. He settled his sword, bow and quiver against the edge of the boat and lay beside them. He kept the book wrapped in its cloth under his coat. The waters were cold and gray, and winter was creeping closer each day. He spent the first hour of the trip in silence.   
  
The second hour, there was another boat on the waves. The chances of meeting another boat on the journey were steep— especially such a large one.   
  
Something splashed in the water not a few meters away, hardly audible above the wind and waves. Beithe sat up from where he had begun to slump against the side, just in time for an arrow to whistle by his ear and barely miss the flickering lantern in the center of the deck.   
  
They were close enough to the ship that Beithe could just barely hear the groans of disappointment over the sea. There was shouting in Norman. Another arrow whizzed by and missed again, lodging itself with a  _thunk_  in their little boat’s side.   
  
Beithe bristled. “They’re playing a game,” he snarled.  
  
Another arrow pluncked into the water as Beithe knelt and picked up his bow, strung it taut and shrugged on his quiver. His sword and Aodhán’s book clattered to his feet as he jerked the stray arrow out of the boat’s side. The head was still intact. He nocked the arrow and drew back until his thumb was against his jaw.   
  
He let the arrow go.   
  
His eyes had adjusted to darkness after staring out at the nighttime sea, and they were just close enough to port that Beithe could almost see as far over the water as he could on his lands. Not only did he hear the startled shouts but the Norman ship was just close enough that he could almost make out the face of the man he’d hit.   
  
He reached into his quiver, nocked the second arrow, and released it into the Norman’s mast.   
  
A flickering candle appeared on the Norman’s deck, and Beithe heard what sounded faintly like shouts of orders from over the water. He knocked a third arrow, and waited.  
  
He could only just make out the outline of the candle’s holder. He could just make out locks of blond hair hanging wet in the sea spray, and a long, pointed profile. Beithe kept breathing.  
  
Francia turned and it seemed that they both owned the waters. As Francia looked at the little light his men were shooting at Beithe  _knew_  that he’d been seen by the way Francia’s posture changed and damn it all, Beithe kept his arrow nocked and the string pulled taught,  _exactly where it was going to very well stay until he drowned—_  
  
“Stop it, all of you,” he heard Francia shout over the wind. He must have been to the mainland. Must have spoken to his king. Brought more troops. More supplies. More wailers and murderers— “You’re just wasting arrows—no it is  _your fault_ Louis is injured now  _stop talking and listen to me_  and leave the stupid fishing boat alone—” A wave rolled over the rest of Francia’s sentence. It rolled beneath their little fishing boat and Beithe had to focus on not losing his balance rather than what Francia was saying. When he had regained his balance, the archers were putting away their bows and running back below their deck, chastised.  
  
Francia stayed on the deck a little longer, holding the flickering candle in his hand for so long it was a wonder the wind didn’t blow it out. For as long as Francia stood there, Beithe held his bow steady.  
  
After what must have been several long minutes, Francis turned and vanished back into the ship. Beithe slowly released the tension from the bow and set the arrow back in the quiver. He replaced them at the side of the boat, picked up the sword and book, replaced the sword by the quiver and bow, and slid the book back under his cloak.   
  
The men in the boat had stopped shouting after his second arrow. They now sat silently across from him, contemplating their breathing. One of them turned off the lamp. The others regarded Beithe quietly.   
  
Beithe sat back and wondered at why Francia had stopped the archers.   
  
He waited for the Norman ship to appear again and ram them into a thousand splinters for the rest of the journey. They didn’t come.  
  
000  
  
Beithe arrived home and returned to his own invasion— a horrible little dance of invading Northumbria and Norman retaliation. It took two years before Norman defense went offensive and overflowed into his borders until once again Beithe had Francia knocking on his door.  
  
“What the fuck do you want?” Beithe asked, scowling as powerfully as he could and pushing all the other, slightly less relevant questions out of his mind.  
  
“For you to acknowledge me as your feudal overlord.” Francia said, holding up a long piece of paper with Malcom III’s signature on the bottom.   
  
“And what makes you think I’m going to listen to that?” Beithe said, crossing his arms over his chest.   
  
“The fact that I just burst through the countryside in less than a year,” Francia said. His face was unsmiling, his brow wrinkled. “Don’t make me do that again. I’ve been trying. I’ve been kind.”   
  
Beithe said nothing, but took the treaty from Francia and stalked up to his court.   
  
Seven years later in 1079, Francis shoves the same treaty in his face and they did it all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things Ireland hates at this time period: snakes, horses, France, snakes, snakes, bad churches, foreigners. (this may be a necessary continuous checklist because his hates tend to shift around a bit)  
>   
> Notes!
> 
> The Norman invasion of Ireland began when an irish lord's(?) wife ran off with another man (Mac Murchada) because her husband was ugly. She’s returned/taken back a year later and thirteen years after that, the husband attacks the man his wife ran off with all those years ago because the Irish believe Revenge is Best Served Cold. Mac Murchada is usurped and runs off to England to ask for help. England has just been integrated into the Norman's feudal system, so when Mac Murchada asks for help from England, he gets Norman lords coming over. When Mac Murchada finally gets his throne back, the Normans… keep coming. And that is how France starts an invasion.
> 
> -People who known what feudalism actually was will also know that the king didn’t actually have any horses except for his own personal use— the nobles had the war horses. Henry II was a bit stingy with bigger fish to fry, and Mac Murchada had to wait a while before getting a declaration of friendship, but after that King Henry II said whichever noble wanted a piece of Ireland (because land was money) could help him out. So a couple English nobles headed over to Ireland to fight to “help” get Mac Murchada’s revenge. While he was waiting, Mac Murchada managed to get a few Welshmen/Normans-In-Wales to help out, most notably Strongbow, who was apparently in pretty deep shit with England and Wales, so decided Ireland was probably a good place to settle down. After Mac Murchada usurped the Leinster crown, he died, so Strongbow proclaimed himself Leinster’s king in direct opposition to Ireland’s laws. Ireland’s laws which claimed the people would choose the next king. The system didn’t please the Normans. So they made their own. Ireland is like “God damn you all” for the very first time. Awww. 
> 
> -Strongbow’s coming basically doubled the Normans in Ireland at a time where everyone wanted all foreigners— even ones initially brought over to help defend Ireland— out.
> 
>  
> 
> -BOOKS! Books at this time period are super expensive and time consuming to create. There aren’t many of them in the world. Virtually the only people who make books at this time are in the Islamic world, a few guys in this magic place called China, and monks in monasteries. We’re paying attention to the monks right now. Not all of them could read very well, though, leading to trouble trnaslating and some really weird pictures in the margins. In addition to writing (and thus preserving) books, monasteries provided vital services to their communities such as providing schooling, acting as hospitals and offering places for travelers to stay during stuff like pilgrimages. They were mostly self-sufficient, but someone wanting to get in God’s good books might volunteer to help work at a monastery for a few days a week for absolutely free. Otherwise, the monks did the majority of the work in their own home. 
> 
> -Ireland is very very very proud of his churches. At this time, they were known for being the best churches around.
> 
> -The paper (er, maybe vellum though. Paper becomes more prominent in Europe closer to the 1300s?) at the end that Francis holds up is the Treaty of Abernethy. It was presented to Malcolm III (directly related to the Malcolm in _Macbeth_ , btdubs) after he invaded Northumbria unsuccessfully. Repeatedly.
> 
> \- …In fact, Malcolm either had a thing about Northumbria or a thing with pissing off Normans. He was forced to resign the treaty at least three times, since he kept breaking it. We don’t actually know what it said except that Scotland was basically a feudal vassal and France/the Normans were its overlords. Scotland apparently just sort of ignored it until it went away and France forgot to renew it. Oh young love.
> 
> -MYTHOLOGY \- Bean Sidhe (Banshees) (literally “fairy women” ) are wailing women who cry when a death is about to occur in a family. They usually only wail to a specific family, and basically all of those families are Irish. Apparently there are several Irish families around the world who have been haunted by Banshees for centuries. Of course, it sucks for Ireland himself because all Irish people are his family, therefore, whenever a member of his family is about to die, he probably hears them. Now let’s just pause and reflect on how many wars, famines, uprisings and purges the Irish have been through…
> 
> -Beithe sets out milk in order to appease goblins and fae. The blood and circles are just a thing because there is probably at least one Celtic god who demands blood being smeared across your eyelids or something I mean come on.


End file.
